Lightweight materials are being used to reduce mass of automotive vehicle on an ever-increasing basis. While lightweight materials are desirable to reduce mass, these materials do not often offer necessary durability to withstand the rigors known to automotive vehicles. For example, aluminum is being used to cast engine heads to provide a lightweight power train to an automotive vehicle. However, a valve seat of a bore formed in an aluminum engine head required for properly sealing a valve of an internal combustion engine does not provide necessary durability. Repeated thermal and load cycles on these valve seats demand a durable material capable of withstanding temperatures between 375° C. to 700° C. while providing sufficient oxidation and wear resistance. Most commercial engine valves use powder metallurgy fabricated steel inserts that are held in place within a valve pocket by way of interference fit. However, while adequate wear resistance has been achieved, other properties such as, for example sufficient, heat conductivity necessary to dissipate heat energy has not been achieved.
Other attempts to improve the performance of a valve seat have included the use of different metallic alloys applied by using lasers, welding, or a thermal spray processes. Many of these efforts have relied on using a high energy laser beam with injected powder metal to form the valve seat on the engine block after which the deposited alloy is machined into a desired configuration. However, these efforts have also proven deficient. Poor process control that does not account for temperature differentials between the engine block and a melt pool formed by the deposited alloy during both application and subsequent cooling have resulted in deficient performance. Often, this has resulted in excessive liquidation of a substrate causing cracking, porosity, and poor quality of the deposited alloy. Additionally, known alloys used to form the valve seat have not provided desirable heat conductivity properties required of high performance internal combustion engines. Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an improved method of forming a valve seat along with an improved alloy composition providing desirable mechanical properties.